A00001
Living in a family constantly conflicting with each other was just one reason I opted to stay home as they went out to dinner, part of me didn't want to deal with them and another part just didn't want to go anywhere that day. Those parts were the base of the most terrifying experience I have ever had in my life. As I sat in my room, alone and bored, it felt like just another ordinary day. The oddities didn't begin to appear until well after 6:00, and because it was winter the sun had set and shrouded the outside world in what seemed to be an eternal shroud of never ending, powerful darkness. I looked up from my computer screen for a second to rest my eyes from the constant bombardment of bright light. Looking around my small, lonely room I didn't notice anything strange about the all to familiar setting. A fairly large bed took up most of the space available, beside that was the old, hand made, fragile oak door that appeared to be falling into worse condition everyday. Beside the door, adjacent to my bed was my large, wooden desk which housed my expensive laptop and all my schoolwork which had been strewn across every available space. There was a small wooden door right next to my desk, in the room was an old non working shower. The tiny room behind that door had always frightened me, even now as I stared intently at it expecting some unknown force to burst out and wreak havoc on my life it felt as if it was covered in an eerie shroud that repelled anything and everything good. As I looked back to the computer screen I noticed the internet browser I had up earlier was closed. In fact, everything that had been open had no trace of being operated and the background had gone back to the plain, blue background that had been programmed into it. Being the old computer it was I passed it off as a system issue that would resolve itself sooner or later and reopened what I had previously been doing. To my great surprise the instant I reopened the browser it closed. I tried my word processor, same ending. After several minutes of confused, frantic opening of programs and their sub sequent crashing I noticed something out of the ordinary. The part of the laptop charger that plugs into the computer had shut off, the green/red status light was off and the laptop didn’t register it even being plugged in. I reluctantly got off my chair and crawled under the desk ( the power outlet was located under the desk on the wall it was pushed up against) and examined the charger. It was still firmly plugged in. Climbing back up and very puzzled I glanced at the screen, my jaw nearly hit the floor. The power level in the top right corner of the computer screen was inexplicably decreasing at an alarming rate, it had been at 100% all day but after staring in awe for less than a minute it had dropped below 10% and I got the standard “battery low, memory loss/ corruption” warning message which soon vanished as well as any sign that the computer had ever worked as it shut down and refused to respond to the charger or my frantic attempts to power it on again. At this point I was beginning to worry, I had never had any problems with the laptop but I also knew it was an older model (2008) and I had purchased it as a refurbished product so it was prone to have some issues eventually. However I had never heard of any computer ever losing a charge and dying in less than 5 minutes. Still staring in utter disbelief at the screen the vibration of my phone almost made me jump out of my seat in terror, reaching over to pick it up I assumed it would be a text message from my faithful best friend who had been checking in on me every few days (Living with a family like mine is difficult to cope with sometimes.) Instead of a usual “hey, what’s up?” message I was greeted by the low battery warning sign telling me my phone was below 15% battery level and that I should charge it soon. I hastily got up from my seat, snatched the phone charger and landed on my bed with a large thump, (The outlet I use for charging my phone is beside my bed) but as I plugged the charger into the outlet and into the phone, nothing happened. No charge, no signal light, nothing. I unlocked the phone and to my dismay the power level quickly went from 15% to 0% and it died just like my lap top had moment before. I was panicking now, electronics had never worked well with me but nothing like this had ever happened. Cold sweat began forming at the top of my forehead as I rose from my bed and went for the door which appeared far more menacing and large then it normally did, but I passed it off as a result of my panic. My hand gripped the cold, brass doorknob, I turned it as fast as I could. *Click*. The doorknob didn’t move, in a terror induced panic attack I screamed at the door, kicking and turning the doorknob furiously in a desperate attempt to escape the cold, room through the ever growing behemoth of a guardian that was the old, oak door. Still in panic attack mode I desperately clawed at the door and the doorknob until my fingers found something I should’ve noticed long before I attempted an escape from the room, the small, shiny, brass slider that locked the door. I slid it from the locked position to the unlocked position and sighed with relief, maybe even rasped out a hoarse chuckle at myself. I pushed the door open and was greeted by the darkness of the long hallway that led to the other rooms of the house, the only light coming from the open doorway of my room and barely illuminating a quarter of the hallway. I turned to my right and switched a small dimmer style light switch to the on position and walked into the bathroom, closing the door behind me and jumping as I heard the soft click of the lightweight door closed behind me. I grasped the sink and turned the water on, the sound of running water always comforted me, it gave me reassurance, told me that everything would be okay and it felt good to drink heavily from the tap. As I reluctantly lifted my head up from the tap for a breath I stared into the mirror hanging above the sink. it had an old wooden boarder around it and it looked like it had a long history to it, parts of the wood were chipping off along with a few cracks in the mirror itself which sometimes distorted the reflection, the old, dark wood had long ago lost it’s shine and was dull and boring to look at. That wasn’t what struck the terror in me though, what hit me like a train was my own reflection. My hazel eyes had turned as black as the night enveloping the outside world, the edges of my mouth were slowly stretching, the flesh beginning to rip exposing pure white teeth. Teeth that were too clean to be mine. Teeth that were straight and pointed like daggers at the ends. The flesh around my mouth continued stretching and ripping, my body had gone numb, I was frozen in fear gripping the sink with snow white knuckles as my face was twisted into a grotesque, horrifying, bloody smile stretching from ear to ear. My eyes widened as my horrible reflection glared back at me with its twisted, murderous smile. I snapped out of my temporary paralysis and my hands flew up, flailing around madly before they reached up and I began to furiously grab at my face, squeezing my eyes shut and falling to the floor, I remember hitting my head on something hard and everything was gone. I was floating through space, weightless as I drifted through the endless sea of black as the stars shone brightly behind me. I felt free, as though I could do anything I wanted to, I began swimming through the black sea and doing rolls and victory loops to celebrate my newfound freedom from life back home. I caught a tiny speck of bright, radiant blue in the corner of my eye. I rolled over to get a better look at it and came face to face with my home planet, the beautiful blue planet of life I called home for the 16 years I had existed. The Earth called to me, beckoning to me to come closer, to embrace the endless life it offered, to come home. I spread my arms wide and began hurtling towards it at frightening speeds, but I didn’t care; I was free. As my journey moved to its end as my body screamed through the endlessness of the black sea I began to make out the continents of the world, which seemed pointless to me, I could make them change if I wanted to, manipulate them, maybe even re-create the great continent of Pangaea, but I decided it would be best to leave the world as it was. My body was still hurtling towards the Earth at increasing speeds, white hot flame enveloped me as I drew closer and closer to a dark spot on the Earth. A pitch black spot in a bright blue ocean. The one spot on the Earth that seemed to harbor some incomprehensible evil that was just waiting to be unleashed onto the world. I began counting down the seconds until my body hit, and shattered the earth into tiny fragments to be thrown into the deepest depths of space. My eyes snapped open, the sound of scratching coming from the door woke me from my strange vision. I was no longer in space hurtling towards the end of the world. I was laying on my back on the cold, ugly tiles that covered my bathroom floor in unoriginal tessellation's that I had seen millions of times before. My hand went up to my face feeling around my mouth, all I felt was the rough stubble I had neglected to shave off. The horrible smiling rip that had divided my face into two was gone, there was not a trace it had ever existed. In fact the only sign that anything abnormal had occurred in the room was a small, neat pile of glass shards laying next to my hand. I struggled to get to my feet and balance myself, when i looked at the mirror I saw the corner had been smashed. My face was normal again, nothing visible there, but as quickly as my relief fell away the sense of fear seeped back into me. The corner of the mirror that had held the pieces of glass which I assumed were the ones piled on the ground in what looked to me like a macabre warning symbol, couldn’t have been smashed by my wild flailing. No, there were no marks on my body indicating contact had been made with the mirror and the spot that had been broken was smashed too neatly. There were no sharp edges along any part that had been smashed and in fact it looked like it had been expertly, precisely cut, a professional job. Upon closer investigation of the pile of glass shards I noticed they were carefully placed atop one another, stacking up perfectly to create a small tower of reflective shards. I realized I was leaning in closer then I normally should have been to view to tower, I was still having difficulties seeing them, and then it hit me. The lights had been dimmed considerably, just more than a faint glow coming out of the three light bulbs that hung from the plain white ceiling, I had not touched the switch which was inconveniently located on the wall outside of the bathroom next to the door. I slowly turned my head to look at the door, the dull, silver doorknob protruding from the elegant, smooth wood that housed it. I reached cautiously for it, gripped the cold metal with my shaky hand and turned. *Click*. The door was locked. I didn’t remember locking the door, in fact I didn’t recall ever locking the door to my room either. I backed away slowly, fearing whatever had made the scratching noise had locked me in this room and would be coming back for me. I curled up in a ball and cried. I cried harder then I ever had in my whole life, harder then when my faithful, lovable pet dog had passed away. I cried hard and loud, I didn’t care if the thing behind the door heard me. I didn’t care if anyone heard me, I just wanted to escape from this horrible nightmare. After what seemed like an eternity I finally gathered the last remaining slivers of courage I had left in me and walked quietly to the door. I turned the lock and then the doorknob, I kept my hand on the cool metal squeezing it with all my strength and threw it open. I snapped my arms back and covered my face ready to be torn apart by whatever entity had taken an enjoyment to watching me break down in fear and succumb to panic attacks. I slowly lowered my defensive shield and looked out into the hallway, there was nothing there. No sign that anything had been scratching at the door, in fact there was no sign that anything besides myself was in the house. The dim lights from the bathroom barely illuminating anything in the pitch black house, outside the windows was nothing but black, no sign of life anywhere. I reached over to the dimmer switch and turned the lights on as high as they would go, but they were unresponsive. They would not turn any brighter and to my confusion, would not go lower, it was as though my situation could not get any better, but it also could not get any worse. I flipped the switch and the lights refused to turn out and this far into my “adventure” I found myself struggling to find this abnormal in any way. I turned back to my room and found myself staring at the guardian. The door had been shut, and this time I swore on my life I had not closed it when I left the room, a tiny sliver of light coming from underneath the heavy door was all that was visible. Reluctantly I turned the door knob and to my great surprise it was not locked, I threw the guardian hard, knocking it off balance and throwing myself into the light of the room screaming at the top of my lungs. I landed on my bed, still screaming and thrashing around as though possessed by a demon until I had finally calmed myself enough to get my bearings. I stood up, struggling to stay upright on my shaky legs and looked around the room, it was exactly how I had left it except for one minor change. My phone was vibrating, making a shrill sound against the grainy wood of my desk. I nervously reached for it and looked at the screen, the battery level showed 10% and the caller ID screen showed an unknown number. The number had an area code I had never seen before, 616. I was sure I did not know whoever, or whatever was calling me. I pressed the answer button on the screen and lifted it up to my ear, I was greeted by two sounds that would stick with me for the rest of my life, the first sounded like something being smashed into bits, a heavy object making contact with a fragile surface. The sound that followed immediately after was that of a lock, slowly being turned into a different position and a door closing shortly after, the call ended after the two sounds. I looked at my phone, horrified as the power level diminished quickly until the phone died once again. I had lost track of time, I had lost track of everything. I don’t remember how long I sat on my bed and sobbed and I don’t remember when my body finally let me fall into a deep sleep, into a new realm that wasn’t as terrifying, a realm that offered comfort. Once again I was floating in the endless sea, but this time things had changed. My faithful dog, Sierra, who had passed away years ago was floating next to me, the scenery changed suddenly, morphing into something completely different, something not unknown to me. I was standing in the field I had always gone to play in as a child, Sierra was still by my side as she always had been throughout my whole life. She got to her feet and began walking away through the lush, green grass that stretched on for miles. After a few quick paces she stopped and turned to look at me, cocking her head slightly, inviting me to follow her through the field, I gladly obliged and ran after her. As we reached the end of the field a sense of uneasiness swept over me, something was wrong with this. It wasn’t real. It shouldn’t be happening, Sierra dipped out of view and I sped after her and over the hill in which she had disappeared over, and straight off the edge of the world. I fell far down into a dark abyss, tendrils of pure darkness reached out towards me, reaching for me, taking me away from paradise. I struggled to push them away, to rid them of my life but I couldn’t resist it and I was snatched up and pulled hastily back into the darkness. I woke with a jump, cold sweat pouring down my face. Looking around my room it had not changed at all, everything was where I had left it, I stood and walked slowly over to my desk and pressed the power button on my lap top. To my relief the screen turned light blue indicating it was turning on and once it had fully powered on I looked to the top right, the battery level was 99%. Thoughts were racing through my mind now, could last night have been a dream? Had I lost my mind? I powered on my phone with the same result, full power and a lot of missed calls. I turned to my door, it was closed but not locked and as I turned the door knob it swung gently open. The hallway was lit brightly by the sun pouring in through the living room windows, looking into the bathroom I could see nothing of what had happened last night. The mirror was still fully intact so I moved on through the living room to the front door. I could hear voices outside! My family, oh how happy I was to hear them, I grabbed the door knob and turned.... *Click* The door was locked. Fear spread through me like a cancer, tears streaming down my face I unlocked the door and stepped outside. The sun hit me full force and I was blinded for a few moments, when I regained my vision I looked out into the front yard, the family car had pulled up and they were stepping out and walking towards the house. I took a joyful step forward and felt a stinging pain as something sharp embedded itself into my bare foot. I screamed in agony and my mother rushed towards me, concern in her eyes but I wasn’t paying her any attention. My eyes were locked on something that I had previously missed when I had stepped outside, there, on the ground in a perfect neat pile were 4 pieces of perfectly cut, perfectly sharpened pieces of glass, but these weren’t ordinary pieces of glass. They were parts of a mirror, I could see my distorted reflection and saw my reflection crack into a wicked grin spreading, getting larger, splitting into that awful ear to ear, bloody smile. my mother screamed as she looked down at the reflection of my mutilated face and as quickly as it had appeared it was gone, no more smile, just my face twisted into an expression of agony and terror. My eyes widened and went bloodshot as hot tears streamed down my face as I moved the perfectly stacked pieces of glass from their perches atop one another revealing a small piece of paper folded into a neat, perfect square. My father and brothers were running towards me now, my mother on the phone calling the hospital. I unfolded the piece of paper and passed out shortly after I read what was on it. Written in blood red ink were 3 numbers and 2 words. The numbers were 616. The words were “Come Home”. I awoke later in a warm hospital bed. A doctor walked in, he was fairly tall, about 5’11, stocky build with a shock of hair falling just above his eyes. He was wearing a light green face mask, the kind doctors wear when they are performing surgeries, he had white, rubber gloves on and was holding a sharp, shiny scalpel. “Hello James, I’m Dr. Gurney, how are you feeling?” I looked at him, he seemed familiar but I couldn’t figure out where I had seen him before but his voice was soothing and I liked him already. “Hey, I’m feeling... better.... What happened?” I asked quietly. The doctor began removing the gloves and slowly began undoing the mask that covered his mouth. “You took a nasty tumble down your stairs James, you cut your foot on some glass and there are major lacerations across your face running from the corner of your mouth to both ears of unknown origin.” I stared up at him, shocked and brought my hands up to my face, but I couldn’t move them, my legs and arms were bound by leather straps. The doctor had fully removed his gloves revealing sharp claws, sharp enough to cut glass with the precision of a professional who had made a career of it. He slowly walked towards me, half of the surgical mask dangling from his face revealing a long, red scar running from the corner of his mouth to his ear. As he advanced towards me he produce a large shard of glass, a shard of a mirror and he placed it next to me. I screamed loudly as he put his vile, deformed hands on my head and turned it to look in the mirror. My face had not been touched, I was healthy as ever aside for one thing. My eyes had turned pitch black, all the color had been stolen from them. The doctor removed the mirror and the surgical mask fell from his face revealing the other side that i had yet to see. I wish I hadn’t looked, the skin was gone from his mouth to his ear, his long pointed teeth were exposed and flesh was still hanging from the sloppy cuts, he looked down at me with his wicked smile. I finally understood where I had seen him, he wasn’t a doctor, he was me, a mirror image of myself. I was staring into another version of me, a version lost in an insane vision, a prison that he could never escape. I stared straight into the one force that was trying so desperately to drag me into the hell I had created for it. It reached down with the scalpel and began to cut, starting from my mouth and going to the corner of me ear. I didn’t stop screaming until I had passed out again. The doctor walked sadly away from the room, never in his life had he seen a case this bad. A 16 year old kid gone off the deep end in one night, his parents claimed they found him with a long cut running from the corners of his mouth to his ears exposing his oddly white teeth with a razor sharp mirror shard in his hand screaming 616 with blood pouring out of his mouth. The doctor walked away after stitching one side of the kids mouth and couldn’t help but crack a wide grin, he found himself unable to control himself, he knew it was wrong but he couldn’t stop smiling as he walked to the waiting room, contemplating what to tell the kids parents. Category:A Category:Old Additions